


The Day After Christmas

by enigmaticblue



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 20:55:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1702250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigmaticblue/pseuds/enigmaticblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy and Wesley on Boxing Day. Dog-sitting. Alone together. What fun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Day After Christmas

Buffy and Wesley looked at one another across the living room, more than slightly dismayed. Giles and Spike had both been called out on an emergency, and they were stuck in the house. With the same nasty cold. Buffy could feel the commiseration.

 

“Now what?” Wesley asked.

 

She shrugged. “Do you want to watch a movie?”

 

“What is there to watch?”

 

“Spike got me _The Princess Bride_ ,” she reminded him. “Have you seen it?”

 

“No,” he replied. “What’s it about?”

 

Buffy stared at him. “Are you kidding me?”

 

“What?” he asked, a little defensively.

 

“You haven’t seen _The Princess Bride_? Have you been living under a rock?”

 

“Is it a girl movie?” he asked, as though that would provide the answer.

 

Buffy snorted. “No, it’s not. Spike likes it.”

 

“That doesn’t tell me anything,”

 

She sighed. “I promise that you won’t hate it.”

 

Wesley didn’t appear terribly reassured. “Very well. I suppose it’s one of those pop culture things I ought to be exposed to.”

 

“It’s a classic,” she assured him. “It’s one of those things that you really _have_ to watch.”

 

Wesley opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by a knock on the door. They engaged in a staring contest, and he was the one to sigh. “Very well.”

 

Buffy trailed slightly behind him, wrapping her arms around herself. She hadn’t wanted to answer the door in her sweats. Really, it was no fun being sick over Christmas, and it was even less fun when Spike had to go take care of a Slayer emergency. He was always especially attentive when she wasn’t feeling her best.

 

She couldn’t quite see who was there when Wesley opened the door, but she could hear the surprise in his voice when he asked, “Can I help you?”

 

“Is Rupert here?”

 

It was a woman’s voice, and she frowned. “Not right now,” Wesley replied cautiously. “Is there something I can do for you?”

 

“Rupert promised to watch Opal for me.” She sounded both bewildered and a little angry. “I’m leaving town, and he said he’d dog-sit.”

 

Buffy’s eyebrows went up. In her estimation, there were only two reasons that the woman would ask Giles to pet-sit: she was either a neighbor, or a girlfriend. “He should be back soon,” Wesley assured her. “We’re staying here with him, and we would be happy to take Opal for you until he returns.”

 

Buffy watched as the woman sized Wesley up—stubble, disheveled hair, and a red nose from the large number of tissues he’d been using. “Are you related?” she asked. “Rupert said he was having family in for the holidays.”

 

“We’re cousins,” he replied.

 

She looked a little skeptical. “I didn’t know that Rupert had family until I invited him to go away with me for Boxing Day. He said he was having relatives visiting with him.”

 

Buffy’s eyebrows rose again. That explained Giles’ last-minute Christmas invitation. She knew that Wesley had been invited when Giles had tried to recruit him for the Council, but she had yet to find out why he’d taken Giles up on the job offer.

 

The woman hesitated, but then seemed to come to a decision. “Very well. Thank you for doing this.” She handed over the bag she’d been holding. “That has all of Opal’s things. Rupert has all the instructions.” She hesitated before handing over the leash. “Are you sure—”

 

“Giles is coming back soon,” Buffy promised, moving forward. “In a couple of hours, probably. We’ll take good care of her.”

 

“Well, I suppose if he’s coming back…” The woman handed the leash to Buffy. “I’ll call him later.”

 

Buffy mentally crossed her fingers, praying that Giles would be back by then. “Okay. Have a nice trip!”

 

Once she was gone, and Wesley had shut the door behind her, Buffy got a chance to look at Opal, who looked like a rather large haystack on legs. “She doesn’t look much like an Opal.”

 

“No, she doesn’t,” Wesley agreed, leaning down to scratch the dog behind what Buffy assumed were her ears. It was hard to tell. “But she seems like a real sweetheart.”

 

“You like dogs?” Buffy asked.

 

He glanced up, looking a little guilty. “I always wanted one as a child,” he confessed, “but my father wouldn’t allow it.”

 

Buffy made a face. “I met your father. No offense, Wes, but he’s not my favorite person.”

 

“As I am not his.” The smile on his face was pained, and he turned back to the dog. “Would you like to watch a movie with us, girl?”

 

Opal gave a little whuff, as though in agreement, and readily followed him into the living room, leaving Buffy to stare after him thoughtfully.

 

~~~~~

 

Wesley had promised himself that he wasn’t going to get close to anyone again. He could be a Watcher here, but he would stay detached. It was always best to remain objective when training those you could be leading into battle the very next day.

 

And yet—he found himself enjoying Giles’ company, and even Buffy and Spike’s. Strange, but he liked Spike much better away from Angel. Not that he’d seen much of Spike in L.A.; the younger vampire had disappeared as soon as he’d become corporeal again. It was clear that he’d gone to Buffy, and that she’d taken him back without question.

 

Wesley wished he had that. They said that home was the place that when you arrive, they have to take you back. He didn’t have a home to go to.

 

He glanced over at Buffy, who was curled up under a blanket in one of Giles’ overstuffed chairs. Being sick over the holidays was never fun, and this was the first cold he’d had in years. From what Buffy had said, she was in much the same boat.

 

Stroking Opal’s coarse fur absently, he focused his attention back on the screen. Inigo Montoya and Fezzik were taking the man in black to Miracle Max, and he had to admit that he was enjoying the film.

 

And not only because the hero’s name was Westley.

 

With any luck, by the time the movie was over Buffy would have forgotten his comment about his father, and she wouldn’t insist on asking why he was here in Bath, rather than in Los Angeles with those he counted as friends, or with his parents at their house in London. He could hope, anyway.

 

The heroes rode off into the night on their white horses, the grandfather finished the story, and Wesley smiled as he glanced down at Opal’s shaggy, mottled head.

 

“So, what brought you here for Christmas, Wes?” Buffy asked. “I know why Giles asked us to come now.”

 

“Why is that?”

 

Buffy smirked. “Didn’t you hear the lady? She didn’t know he had family until she invited him to stay with her. That’s a little convenient, don’t you think?”

 

“Giles was trying to avoid the invitation without hurting her feelings,” Wesley said, the light dawning. “That sly dog.” Opal raised her head inquiringly, and he began scratching again.

 

“Our invitation was last minute,” Buffy confirmed. “Which was fine, since Dawn went skiing with friends. Giles said he called to ask you to join the Council, though, and you accepted.”

 

“I did.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Perhaps I wanted to prove that I could do the job,” he suggested, not daring to hope that she’d accept that answer.

 

Buffy snorted. “Please, Wes. Everyone knows you can do this job.”

 

He swallowed hard. “Really?”

 

“Uh, yeah.” Her tone said that he was being a git; Wesley couldn’t dispute that. “So, why? I thought you were pretty happy with Angel’s crew.” When he didn’t respond right away, she asked, in a gentler tone, “Does it have something to do with Buttercup?”

 

It took him a second to get her reference, and a smile touched his lips. “Something like that.”

 

“Did you get the ‘it can never work between us’ or the ‘I think we should just be friends’ speech?”

 

“Friends.” He met her eyes. “You’ve heard both of them before, I take it.”

 

“I’ve _given_ them,” she corrected him. “To Spike, actually. You can see how well that worked out.”

 

Since the two of them seemed quite content with one another—if prone to bickering—Wesley couldn’t deny the inefficacy of the speeches. In their case. He and Fred were another thing entirely. “This was different.”

 

“It always is.”

 

Silence fell, and Wesley focused on Opal’s dense fur and wished that Fred had said something else when he’d tried to explain his feelings once again. _Anything_ else besides, “I just don’t think of you that way, Wesley. You’re like my brother.”

 

Giles’ call had come immediately thereafter, and he’d made an impulsive decision that he might end up regretting later—although he was happy to be away from Wolfram & Hart.

 

“Why do they call it Boxing Day?” Buffy asked abruptly.

 

Wesley looked up, startled at the change in subject. “What?”

 

“Boxing Day,” she repeated. “What is it? Why have it? Is it just an excuse for another holiday?”

 

He realized that Buffy would have no reason for knowing, as it wasn’t a holiday in the States. “It was traditionally a time when the rich would put food and other things in boxes for the poor,” he replied. “And children would access their money boxes, where the money they’d received over the holidays was put.”

 

She looked thoughtful. “So, first you get, then you give?”

 

“Something like that,” he agreed. “Although these days it’s reserved for shopping and sport.”

 

“For what it’s worth, Wes, we need you,” she said softly. “We have a lot of Slayers, but very few Watchers I’d trust to take care of them.”

 

He blinked, surprised at her words and the real feeling behind them, and he realized that she’d just give him a gift: the gift of being wanted and needed. “Thank you,” he managed. “It’s good to be here.”

 

“Even with being sick?”

 

“Even then.” And oddly enough, it was entirely true.


End file.
